The winner of Kaplicky Internship 2023 wins with her vague terrains project a work experience at Büro Ole Scheeren

The final round of the competition took place on Monday, November 20, when the five finalists presented their projects to the expert jury in the Student Hub of the Bakala Foundation. The jury consisting of Czech experts was completed by Deyan Sudjic, Director Emeritus of the Design Museum in London, which is one of the competition's partners, and Emma Aulanko, a representative of Büro Ole Scheeren, where this year's winner will spend their internship.

The Kaplicky Internship competition was organized for the second time in cooperation with the Czech Chamber of Architects and their Diploma Thesis Competition (so-called Diplomky). The announcement of the winners of both competitions took place in the premises of CAMP (Center for Architecture and Urban Planning) in the early evening of November 20. Ole Scheeren, director and founder of Büro Ole Scheeren, opened the evening with his lecture on Form Follows Fiction.

After the lecture, the audience learned the names of young architects who received various awards. The winner of Kaplicky Internship 2023 competition was 26-year-old Anna Jelínková with her project Our estranged places, which addressed the usability of empty urban spaces and voids, so-called vague terrains. She located her multifunctional house in Chrudim in the neighborhood of the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.

"The initial idea was to combine the properties of vague terrains and find out whether it would be possible to use them for housing. I tried to find a way of living for my generation, for whom this question is currently burdensome, and to propose a suitable alternative to cohabitation,” describes the author.

Ole Scheeren explains why Anna´s project appealed to the jury: "Urban density and the livability of cities are some of the key questions of our profession. Buro-OS has consistently been committed to creating spaces of life and integrating nature in the urban environment, not only for the users of our design but also for the cities and the communities. Anna Jelinkova’s project focuses on urban voids and unoccupied spaces, combined with the aim of making these spaces available for the community while maintaining a degree of flexibility and freedom of usage. We think this will offer plenty of common ground for a fruitful collaboration and look forward to welcoming her to our team."

"I'm really looking forward to the internship in Berlin at Ole Scheeren's studio, also because their projects are different from the ones I've worked on so far," says the recent winner. "It will also be of great benefit to me to participate in projects on different continents."

Anna Jelínková thus joins the previous 8 Kaplicky Internship winners who, thanks to their participation in the competition, received an internship in renowned architectural studios such as Zaha Hadid Architects, Foster + Partners, Eva Jiřičná Architects and others.

More information about Kaplicky Internship can be found HERE.